Unfortunately yes, you have confused the flat and primary bevel plus a few other things, but they're not relevant here and I'm sorry we hijacked the thread.

The original post was about poor results using the Sharpmaker. One possible explanation (and a likely one) is that our forumite used the Sharpmaker only on the secondary/edge/micro-bevel (or however you wish to call it) instead of maintaining a proper geometry by grinding the main bevel as well. If that's the case it can easily explain why the knife is suddenly getting "dull" though the edge itself has been honed properly.